A Witch and A Raccoon Take A Road Trip
by Tohdoh
Summary: Wanda and Rocket hop into a car to fetch the Time Stone. She just got her driver's license. He's got a fuse shorter than baby Groot. Not a good mix. [Post-IW oneshot. Based on scrapped Endgame idea that Wanda survived the Snap and partnered with Rocket for the Time Heist.]


**A Witch and A Raccoon Take A Road Trip**

When Tony and Steve explained the grand plan they had scrapped together as a last ditch gambit to save their friends, world, and universe, Wanda was nodding along to each step. That is, until she heard how she would be involved.

"Wait, I'm with the chipmunk?" she blurted out.

Across from Wanda, just a jump over the meeting table for him to claw at her face, in fact, the only survivor among the Guardians of the Galaxy bristled and bared his sharp teeth. "Did you just assume my species?"

She rolled her eyes. "Sorry, squirrel."

"The name's Rocket. Get that straight, lady."

Wanda returned his scowl and opened her mouth, but Steve beat her to it.

"No trades. Assigned partners are final."

Rocket and Wanda groaned together. She'd much rather be paired up with Clint, or with anyone else in the Avengers, really. Not with a talking angry rodent from space. Wanda felt a flash of envy at Natasha, who was lucky to be paired up with her longtime fellow agent. As for Rocket, he didn't want to pair up with anyone. He'd rather go solo. After losing the team he came to treat as a family, he really wasn't in the mood to shift gears for the new team. Huh, new team...more like a bunch of surviving misfits.

The plan was to jump back to 2012 and retrieve the Time Stone from where it was guarded closely in the Sanctum. Tony had given Wanda the keys to one of his old Corollas, so she and Rocket would have a way to sneak into Sanctum territory.

"I have to drive?" Wanda fidgeted with the ends of her sleeves. A persistent, nervous habit of hers.

"Relax. You'll be fine." Clint rested a hand on her shoulder. "You can't go wrong when you had me as your teacher."

His warm encouragement brought a tiny brief smile to her face. Then he pulled his hand away and had to step back. Clint joined the others under the quantum realm machine, which yawned over everyone from the ceiling like a great silver maw about to swallow them up. He warped into Vormir with Natasha, leaving Wanda alone with Rocket.

He met eyes with her and jerked his snout to the exit doors. "C'mon, we can take my ship along by using Scott's size-changing gizmo."

"No, we have to drive," she insisted.

Rocket quirked a furry eyebrow. "Why? That'll take a lot longer."

She stood her ground. "Maybe, but the ship will draw too much attention to sorcerers protecting the Sanctum. We have to be discreet and lay low." Wanda wished that Rocket's idea of transportation could fly—literally—but the demand for stealth took priority.

Rocket shrugged. "I'll drive the car, then. Shouldn't be too hard to handle a car from Earth, right?"

Wanda's gaze from his head to tail didn't have to travel down far. "You're...uh, too short. Your feet won't touch the pedals."

He scowled and crossed his arms. "Can't a car accommodate for build and height like the billion other ships I've flown?"

No way he flew in a billion. Wanda had no time for this crap. "Look, I'll drive. Leave it to me."

"Earth tech is so primitive."

She ignored his disgusted, drawling remark and once they warped back to the New York of 2012, she escorted him to Tony's silver Corolla, now hers, in the garage. It was a simple car, secondhand, definitely not among the shiny, pricey, extravagant models gracing Tony's personal collection. In other words, the perfect vehicle for passing through and sneaking in without drawing suspicion or attention. As Wanda climbed into the driver's seat, she mentally recited the mantra to attempt relieving her anxiety: _It's fine, I'm fine, everything's fine_. She passed the test and got her driver's license just a week before Thanos snapped half of the living population out of existence. But Rocket didn't have to know that. His opinion of Wanda already put her low among the dirt, it seemed.

Wanda scrunched her eyes shut as she clenched the steering wheel. _If I can't drive better than a freakin' rodent, then I'd be a pathetic excuse of a human being._

Rocket jumped into the front passenger seat and struggled with pulling the belt across his little body. Finally he jammed in the buckle. "Start the car, already, lady."

"The name's Wanda," she snapped. "Get _that_ straight."

"Okay, Wendy."

She wanted to slam her forehead into the steering wheel. This was going to be a long, painful drive. No sooner had she started up the ignition, Rocket's left paw flitted over to turn on the radio. And Wanda turned it right back off before shifting gears from park to reverse.

"No music," she said.

"Why not?"

"I don't want any distractions."

Rocket scoffed. "You must be a lot of fun at parties."

"We're not here to have fun."

"So what do you have in mind? Torture?" Rocket gestured to the seat belt. "I'm strapped and trapped in a box of Neanderthal Earth tech, with no music allowed and me not driving. This is definitely torture."

Wanda, not knowing what a Neanderthal is, resisted asking for its meaning and bit back a retort.

The Sanctum, being a magically concealed place, couldn't show up on the GPS, of course. The Starbucks across from it would have to do as the next best destination. Wanda backed out of the garage and drove away with the Triskelion at their backs.

"Woo hoo, here we go," Rocket said, with all the enthusiasm of a kid being dragged to school early in the morning.

Wanda wished she could slap on a muzzle for the chipmunk, squirrel, whatever he was. Steve had a good scolding from her waiting for him when everyone else managed to come back with the Stones.

Rocket began to hum, then sing—badly—and Wanda ground out between gritted teeth, "If you're going to keep doing that, I'll make you wear a booster seat."

The threat flew over his furry head as he smirked. "Booster seat, huh? That sounds cool."

He was probably thinking of a high tech seat with neat little gadgets attached or something. Wanda had to pull over and show him a picture of a booster seat on her phone. Only then he understood and recoiled from her.

"You wouldn't dare," he said. "That's for babies."

"You think I'm joking around? I'm the one driving, so no music and no singing."

That subdued Rocket as he flattened his ears and muttered under his breath.

Cars zoomed past her on the left lane. She stiffened in her seat and gripped the wheel for a scary moment before letting out a shaky breath. She hated when people sped like that. She especially hated it when people sped by so fast and so close that she could feel her car shake.

Evidently inspired by the speeding cars, Rocket perked up his ears and said, "Hey, let's ramp it up. We got a mission and we're pressed for time. No one's around to make sure the rules are being followed."

Wanda didn't floor the gas pedal. "You never know who's watching. The last thing I want is to fail the mission and not make it to the Sanctum just because the police pulled us over."

If Pietro were here, he'd wholeheartedly agree with the squirrel-chipmunk-thing. He had never driven a car, let alone owned one, but he'd want to go fast. And by fast, he'd happily go over a hundred miles an hour. Even after all these years, thinking of Pietro made Wanda's heart wrench in her chest.

Meanwhile, Rocket slumped in his seat and grumbled. "You're driving like an old lady. Are you always this paranoid, Walda?"

She didn't correct him. She didn't make any reply. Instead she was lost in her thoughts and too busy with blinking away the mist creeping into her eyes to care much about what Rocket was saying.

Anxious around cars zooming on the freeway, Wanda exited into the feeder road, which was riddled with cracks, bumps, and potholes. If Wanda pulled out her heart from her chest, she'd find it as battered and worn as that street. What had happened in Wakanda, to Vision, put the biggest dent into her heart. How much left did she have to spare? What else did she have left to give to a universe full of lives that wouldn't know and thank her for the hits she had taken? Wanda had long grown tired of this thankless job, of being an Avenger. She had no one else to lose now. What was the point anymore?

Rocket had to shout for her to hear him. "Slow down! Damn it, Willa, you're gonna pop a tire!"

Wanda had channeled her sorrow and anger into flattening her foot little by little over the acceleration. Rocket's shout snapped her out of her reverie, but too late. She drove too fast to swerve away in time from a large pothole in the feeder road. The left front wheel fell into it, pitching the car forward and counterclockwise. Against all instinct to tighten and curl up, Wanda let go of the wheel to throw out glowing red hands. Her powers kept the Corolla from flipping over. Under another wave of her hands, the car seemed to upright itself with all wheels back on the street. The red haze faded from her palms and she slumped back into her seat in a cold sweat.

Hunched low in the passenger seat, and clutching the belt, Rocket gawked at her, and said in a small voice that matched his size, "Oh. I forgot you can do that."

Wanda struggled to catch her breath, and balling her hands into fists couldn't stop the shaking in them.

Rocket quickly recovered from his shock and raised his voice over the car's blaring alarm. "What were you thinking, huh? You could've gotten us killed!"

"I can't do this. I can't do this." Now Wanda was next to curl into a ball, hugging herself, and burying sobs into arms folded over the steering wheel. The little car accident broke the dam within her loose. She no longer cared about being an embarrassment in front of Rocket.

Expecting a wave of derisive insults, she was surprised to hear him say, "Sure you can do this. It's just a drive with no traffic. Can't get any easier than that."

"It's not _just_ a drive." Wanda pressed both palms over her face before she dropped them and blew out a loud huff. "I'm a new driver," she admitted. "I haven't had my license for too long." She turned away from Rocket to face her window. "There, you've got one more reason to think I'm pathetic."

"Hey, Wanda. Look at me."

He finally got her name right. At that, she peeked over her shoulder. Rocket unbuckled his seat belt and narrowed the distance between them with a footpaw over the beverage holders.

"You're a stick in the mud and a nervous wreck, sure, but you're not pathetic. I was there when Thanos came to Earth, you know. I saw how you held him back, and five freakin' Infinity Stones, with _one_ hand. And with the _other_ hand, all by yourself, you destroyed the sixth Stone. You're one of the strongest beings I've ever met in the galaxy. You still think you're pathetic, after all that?"

She supposed that this was his way of assuring her, but how he had described the terrible feat she had to pull off sent a fresh wave of pain through her. She tightened her hands into fists over her lap. "I didn't just destroy the sixth Stone," she murmured. "I killed someone I loved."

"Then the bastard went and made him die again. I saw that, too. That must've been hard." Rocket extended a paw, pulled it back for a few moments, then let it barely rest on her shoulder. "I…I'm sorry."

Wanda hadn't known Rocket for long, but mind-bending powers lent her a keen sense of reading people (or a talking animal, in this case). He seemed to her someone who hid behind an angry, prickly shell he kept up as an impenetrable defense. Like a hedgehog. Recently, reluctantly, he was coming out to show a soft underside beneath all that prickliness. She wondered who coaxed Rocket to open up.

"You also lost someone because of Thanos, didn't you?"

His brow knitted at the middle over his snout. "A whole bunch of someones. Peter, Gamora, Drax, Mantis, and…" He forced down the lump in his throat. "And Groot." Rocket dropped his paw from Wanda's shoulder to dash the back of it over his wet eyes.

Up until now Wanda had only been thinking of herself, her own losses, and shame at that overwhelmed her. "I'm sorry, too," she said. Compassion pushed away all the irritation she had for him since they were assigned to team up. She wrapped an arm behind his back and drew him into an embrace. Rocket didn't pull away. Instead he sagged against her and wept into her shoulder. He was small enough to sit on her lap and be cradled in her hug, like a child. Wanda rested a palm on the back of his head, and Rocket welcomed that gesture. He had seen how those hands channeled incredible power, yet her touch was so gentle, so understanding.

They made a strange sight: a young woman and a talking raccoon, crying and hugging in each other's arms, inside a silver Corolla skewed across an empty street.

"We have a lot in common, you and me," Wanda said gently by his ear. "We're loners. The only ones left standing." She told him about her parents, and Pietro, and the country she was born into but no longer existed.

He looked up at her. "You remind me an awful lot of this guy named Thor. Crazy strong, took on the power of a star and lived, but lost everyone and everything along the way." Rocket shook his head. "Power's got a way of making people like you the loneliest in the universe."

Wanda didn't expect such sage-like melancholy from a talking raccoon, but she felt the invisible weight on her shoulders from the resounding truth of what he said.

Rocket pulled away and climbed back into the passenger seat. "Okay, we got a chance to make things right again, and we sure as hell won't get another one. We got a Stone to steal, and we don't got much time."

Wanda pressed knuckles over her eyes and blinked away the tears. "You're right. Let's get this done."

"Sit upright, shoulders back, arms straight, hands on the wheel at 3 and 9 o'clock, and no more waterworks now. You can't be driving while you're crying."

"Don't tell me what to do. I passed the driving test, you know." This time she was trying to joke around and lighten up.

Rocket did likewise. "Sure, but I'm the expert pilot here. I gotta say my piece as the co-pilot." Then he said with sincerity, "Lots of people are counting on you, Wanda. When this is over and Thanos gets his ass kicked to the curb, I'll hop over to all the planets I know and tell as many of them as possible about all the awesome things you can do."

That made her chuckle, which she hadn't done in years. "Thanks, Rocket."

He squinted at the GPS. "The Sanctum's a straight shot from this freeway." Then he looked up at her. with pleading, puppy dog eyes "So floor it. Just this once. For me."

Wanda could almost hear the spirit of her cheeky, adrenaline junkie twin brother speak through Rocket. At that, she broke out a wide grin and grilled the road with a determined gaze like a pro racing driver, her foot ready to flatten the gas pedal. "Okay, here we go."

* * *

**Whoops, my attempt at solely humor and silliness ended up mixing in bittersweet feels. Hope you still enjoyed this. When I heard about how the idea of Wanda surviving the Snap and retrieving the Time Stone with Rocket got scrapped early in the production of Endgame, I thought, 'This is perfect fuel for fanfiction.' Rocket is my favorite Guardian and Wanda is my favorite Avenger, so how could I not write about them together?**

**P.S: Wanda calling Rocket a squirrel and a chipmunk is a nod at how Elizabeth Olsen can never seem to figure out what kind of animal Rocket was during an interview (which was both hilarious and facepalm-y). ****The more logical, in-universe explanation is that raccoons are native to North America, and as an immigrant and ESL speaker from Sokovia, Wanda probably wouldn't know that's the right term for Rocket.**

**P.P.S: I had to edit this a couple of times after I uploaded because I forgot about logistics like the Time Stone theft being back in 2012, and getting rid of descriptions of how the Snap impacted how the streets looked. Sorry for the mess!**


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